Revisionist public choice theory

New Political Economy

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 77-88

  Brennan, Geoffrey ^a   Hamlin, Alan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; POLITICAL ECONOMY; POLITICAL THEORY; TRADE-OFF;

EID: 40449128326     PISSN: 13563467     EISSN: 14699923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13563460701859744     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. Thomas Christiano, 'Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?', Ethics, Vol. 115, No. 1 (2004), pp. 122-41.
2. Specifically, Christiano cites Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires (Cambridge University Press, 2000) as exemplifying the revisionist position, and
3. Russell Hardin, Liberalism, Constitutionalism and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 1999), as representing sophisticated mainstream rational choice theory.
4. We used the term 'revisionist' about ourselves as early as Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 'A Revisionist View of the Separation of Powers', Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1994), pp. 345-68.
5. See Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 'Positive Constraints on Normative Political Theory', MANCEPT Working Paper 4/07, University of Manchester (2007). See http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ disciplines/politics/researchgroups/mancept/workingpapers/ (last accessed 30 January 2008) for discussion of these disagreements.
6. Some scholars would disagree. 'Public choice' is often associated with the normative project of analysing 'political failure' - in the spirit of that strand of welfare economics in which the category of 'market failure' is central. That particular project is sometimes seen as being ideologically motivated. The search for a different term ('rational choice political theory', 'positive political theory', 'modern political economy' are all in play) possibly reflects a desire to distance the project from any ideological connotation. Our view is that although the various terms may have different connotations, the analytic core of the project remains the same.
7. Christiano, 'Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?', p. 123.
8. See Albert Hirschman, 'Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating Some Categories of Economic Discourse', American Economic Review, Vol. 74, No. 2 (1984), pp. 89-96,
9. and Albert Hirschman, 'Against Parsimony', Economics and Philosophy Vol. 1, No. 1 (1985), pp. 7-21 for discussion.
10. See particularly, Geoffrey Brennan & Philip Pettit, The Economy of Esteem (Oxford University Press, 2004).
11. This section draws on Alan Hamlin, 'Political Dispositions and Dispositional Politics', in Giuseppe Eusepi & Alan Hamlin (eds), Beyond Conventional Economics: The Limits of Rational Behaviour in Political Decision-Making (Edward Elgar, 2006), pp. 3-16.
12. In the sense of Harry Frankfurt, 'Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person', Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 1 (1971), pp. 5-20.
13. The connection between internal personal constitutions and political constitutions appears, for example, in Geoffrey Brennan & James M. Buchanan, The Reason of Rules (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
14. For extended discussion of a specific general conditioning disposition - the conservative disposition - see Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 'Analytic Conservatism', British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2004), pp. 675-91,
15. and Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 'Conservatism, Idealism and Cardinality', Analysis, Vol. 66, No. 292 (2006), pp. 286-95.
16. We make no claim that these three types of dispositions exhaust the possibilities.
17. For more detailed discussion of the expressive argument see Geoffrey Brennan & Loren Lomasky, Democracy and Decision (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
18. Alexander Schuessler, A Logic of Expressive Choice (Princeton University Press, 2000)
19. Brennan & Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires.
20. For empirical investigations of expressive voting behaviour see: Cassandra Copeland & David Laband, 'Expressiveness and Voting', Public Choice, Vol. 110, No. 3-4 (2002), pp. 351-63
21. Jean-Robert Tyran, 'Voting When Money and Morals Conflict: An Experimental Test of Expressive Voting', Journal of Public Economics Vol. 88, No. 7-8 (2004), pp. 1645-64
22. Colin Jennings & Stephen Drinkwater, 'Who are the Expressive Voters?', Public Choice, Vol. 132, No. 1-2 (2007), pp. 179-89.
23. See Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 'Expressive Voting and Electoral Equilibrium', Public Choice, Vol. 95, No. 1-2 (1998), pp. 149-75. While voting in a large scale election is the prime example of expressive behaviour, it is not the only area in which the expressive idea might carry implications. For discussion of expressive issues in the formation of political groups, and in the role of political leaders,
24. see Alan Hamlin & Colin Jennings, 'Group Formation and Political Conflict: Instrumental and Expressive Approaches', Public Choice, Vol. 118, No. 3-4 (2004), pp. 413-35
25. Alan Hamlin & Colin Jennings, 'Leadership and Conflict', Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 64, No. 1 (2007), pp. 49-68.
26. For an overview of the 'cheap talk' literature, see Joseph Farrell & Matthew Rabin, 'Cheap Talk', The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1996), pp. 103-18.
27. As an empirical matter there does seem to be pretty convincing evidence that such talk does make a difference. See, for example, David Sally, 'Conversation and Co-operation in Social Dilemmas', Rationality and Society, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1995), pp. 58-92.
28. Of course, expressive behaviour may express aspects of personality, identity and passion, as well as responding to normative concerns and the issue of esteem. For discussion of the relationship between (rational) interests and passions see Albert Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton University Press, 1977)
29. Michael Walzer, 'Passion and Politics', Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 28, No. 6 (2002), pp. 617-33
30. Michael Walzer, Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism (Yale University Press, 2006).
31. See, for example, the discussion of moral attitudes to trade in James M. Buchanan & Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (University of Michigan Press, 1962), ch. 18. Of course, broader motivations are also important in many of the classic texts cited by public choice theorists - such as Madison's contributions to the Federalist Papers.
32. For related discussion see John Broome, Weighing Goods (Blackwell, 1991), whose 'principal of personal good' is individualistic in this sense since if something is good, it must be good for (at least) someone.
33. We identify this as an essentially political problem to distinguish it from the essentially ethical problem of addressing the truth (if any) of alternative claims to normative salience and the precise meaning of normative statements.
34. This connection is the major theme of Brennan & Hamlin, 'Positive Constraints on Normative Political Theory'.
35. As put, for example, in Geoffrey Brennan & James M. Buchanan, The Power to Tax (Cambridge University Press, 1980), and Brennan & Buchanan, The Reason of Rules.
36. This was a major theme of Brennan & Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires
37. see also Julian Le Grand, Motivation, Agency and Public Policy: Of Knights and Knaves, Pawns and Queens (Oxford University Press, 2003)
38. Timothy Besley, 'Principled Agents?': The Political Economy of Good Government (Oxford University Press, 2006). Of course, heterogeneity of detailed motivation allows the possibility that at least some individuals are knaves and so retains the idea that, ceteris paribus institutions should be designed to be knave-proof; although this is by no means the only criteria by which institutions may be judged.
39. See discussion in J. R. Clark and Dwight Lee, 'Expressive Voting: How Special Interests Enlist their Victims as Political Allies', in Eusepi & Hamlin (eds), Beyond Conventional Economics, pp. 17-32,
40. and their references to James M. Buchanan, 'Individual Choice in Voting and the Market', The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 62, No. 4 (1954), pp. 334-43,
41. and Gordon Tullock, 'The Charity of the Uncharitable', Western Economic Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1971), pp. 379-92.
42. See, particularly, Ronald Heiner, 'The Origin of Predictable Behavior', American Economic Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (1983), pp. 560-95
43. Ronald Heiner, 'The Origin of Predictable Dynamic Behavior', Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1989), pp. 233-57
44. and Werner Güth & Hartmut Kliemt, 'Competition or Cooperation: On the Evolutionary Economics of Trust, Exploitation and Moral Attitudes', Metroeconomica, Vol. 45, No. 2 (1994), pp. 155-87.
45. We do not mean that normative analysis would be completely unjustifiable in such a case - merely that justification would be indirect - for example, it would still be possible for normative analysis to evaluate alternative social outcomes or policies but, absent any motivational impact, such evaluation could play no direct causal role in bringing about those outcomes or policies that were deemed good (better) or right.